Popular Music Journalism: Topic 11

11. How does my writing compare with published writers I admire? What do I want to improve for next year?

With regards to music journalism, on reflection there is little or no-ones work out there whom I consider myself a fan of. On the other hand, there are definitely some writers out there whose prose and pieces I do enjoy. The advent of social media has enabled my generation unlimited access to creative writing, in particular I find the prose and wit penned by some journalisms to be particularly endearing. At present I am confident with the style and flow with which I use to write my pieces, and believe in comparision to others they do have a distinct sense of individuality. Sometimes though I feel my prose can be unnecessarily wordy, with sentences becoming cluttered and end up drawing the readers attention away from my original point entirely.

In direct contrast to my own style of writing, I admire writers who are able to draw a wry smile from their readers. This is usually from game or music bloggers, sometimes freelance, other times its from user submission. The use of humour in ones writing is a risky decision to take but I find that with the pieces I get most enjoyment from reading, its subtle enough to entertain but at the same time not laid on thick enough to turn you away. A commentary I came across recently, reviewing a particular title for the Nintendo Wii. I had never played this game, nor had any interest in purchasing it; yet the first line of the piece was well-written enough for me to invest time in reading the remainder of the article. To start; 'Conduit 2 Review: More like Con-don't-do-it 2: And with that headline, I exhausted and easily matched every bit of creativity that Sega and High Voltage Software put into Conduit 2, a half-rendered, poorly scripted, mysteriously voice-acted, first-person shooter for the Nintendo Wii' (Murdock, 2011). I love the character and wit of this piece, it encourages you, the reader, to follow the author and listen to his reasoning behind such a frank opening sentence.


So, for the next two years, I would love to increase the accessibility of my pieces. If i'm being asked to write a 200, 300 or 500 word article, I would have no problem doing this but still think that any personality that may come across in my writing won't be liked by all. Perhaps this is true of the articles that I enjoy reading, but accessibility and humour are definitely areas for improvement (in my own opinion).

MURDOCK, T, M., 2011. Conduit 2 Review: More like Con-don't-do-it-2 [online] [viewed 9 May 2011]. Available from: http://www.joystiq.com/2011/05/03/conduit-2-review/